FSF: Apple’s iTunes Store terms of service at odds with GPL

Many iPhone apps in the App Store rely on open source code. However, Apple's …

The Free Software Foundation is up in arms over Apple's iTunes Store Terms of Service, suggesting that these terms fundamentally conflict with the terms of the GNU Public License. The foundation has warned Apple that a version of GNU Go distributed by the App Store makes Apple liable to comply with GPL terms that allow free sharing of code, but warned that its "Usage Rules" violate those terms. The fallout could potentially affect any app that uses GPLed code.

The issue came to the forefront when the FSF discovered that the developers of the iPhone version of GNU Go weren't in full compliance with the requirements of GPLv2. Those terms require that any software created as a derivative of code under the GPL also be licensed under the GPL. Furthermore, the GPL states that such software can be freely copied, shared, and modified by the user.

According to Brett Smith, license compliance engineer for FSF, Apple's terms of service prevent that from happening. "Apple is free to distribute our software through the App Store if they wish, but they cannot take advantage of the [GPL's] permissions while turning a blind eye to the conditions," he wrote in a statement on FSF's website. "If they want to continue distributing this software, they must not prohibit others from doing so through the iTunes Store Terms of Service."

We went through the lengthy terms of service for the iTunes Store and the App Store. Smith pointed us to section 10 of the iTunes Store Terms of Service, which notes that any content obtained from the iTunes Store is subject to (and users agree to comply with) a series of "usage rules."

These rules contain a specific rule for software: "Usage rules for software Products are governed by the terms of any end-user agreements or other terms and conditions required for use of such Products."

In fact, Apple has a specific end-user license that applies to software sold through the App Store, which makes a direct exception for open source software (emphasis ours):

"You may not copy (except as expressly permitted by this license and the Usage Rules), decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, attempt to derive the source code of, modify, or create derivative works of the Licensed Application, any updates, or any part thereof (except as and only to the extent any foregoing restriction is prohibited by applicable law or to the extent as may be permitted by the licensing terms governing use of any open sourced components included with the Licensed Application)."

However, any end-user license supplied by the developer takes precedence over Apple's terms, and in the case of an app that contains GPLv2 code, that means the app is governed by the GPL.

Many apps in the App Store use GPLed open-source code, such as Doom, XPilot, Frotz, and Tyrian. Apple's developer program agreements require that developers comply with any licenses for any code used in an app distributed through the App Store. We spoke with the developer of Tyrian, who told Ars that Tyrian includes the full text of the GPL and offers to let users view the terms on first run. The app's description also clearly states that the app is GPLed and that source code is available upon request.

So it seems that Apple makes specific concessions for open source software, and as long as developers comply with the terms of the GPLv2 and make source code available, everything should be fine. However, Smith told Ars, that isn't enough to bring Apple into compliance.

Since Apple is the distributor of any App Store software, then according to the terms of the GPLv2 Apple must also comply with all terms of the GPLv2. According to Smith, that means not placing any restrictions on what a user can do with the software. "Even if the original developers distributed the software to Apple in full compliance with the GPL's terms, Apple would still violate the license when it distributed the software through the App Store and subjected the program to their terms of service's usage rules," he said.

And the problem isn't necessarily with Apple's application of DRM to apps distributed through the App Store, but merely the fact that it attaches its usage rules to software licensed under GPLv2. According to section 10(c) of the terms of service (emphasis added), "the Usage Rules shall govern your rights with respect to the Products, in addition to any other terms or rules that may have been established between you and another party." The FSF contends that legally this means "your ability to use and distribute the software is limited by the usage rules, no matter how the software is licensed," as Smith explained.

Apple declined to comment on whether or not it agreed with FSF's conclusions or if it believed it could modify the iTunes Store terms of service to come into compliance with the terms of the GPLv2. However, GNU Go has been removed from the App Store since FSF sent its notification to Apple yesterday.

If a developer is the original author of code licensed under the GPLv2, that code could be dual licensed for distribution under the App Store. But if a developer incorporates someone else's GPLed code, and Apple doesn't change its terms of service to be in compliance with the GPL, then developers may find their apps being removed from the App Store en masse.

That's not the end result that the FSF would like to see. "The conditions [for GPL compliance] are not onerous; plenty of other companies before Apple have distributed GNU Go without any trouble," Smith told Ars. "We think Apple can do it, too. Whether or not they care enough about users to make the necessary changes is Apple's choice alone."

Then the developer WOULD be in breach. But it's trivial to provide a code link. Please don't pretend this is any sort of real barrier.

But the developer didn't. Go try to find the code on their site. If you looked a few days ago you would have seen a claim that they were going to release the source in the near future, and as of today they have completely taken down that page (though it is available via google cache).

This isn't some small little technical thing. Apple cannot comply with GPL without the help of the developer. Maybe the developer would have been happy to help them, maybe not, but it is irrelevant because Apple is not a party to the license and doesn't want to be. The copyright holder (FSF) informed Apple that the developer did not have those rights, which meant the binary was a infringing their copyright, and Apple removed it, which was the correct response since without being a party to the GPL they have no rights to distribute absent the copyright holders approval.

Then the developer WOULD be in breach. But it's trivial to provide a code link. Please don't pretend this is any sort of real barrier.

But the developer didn't. Go try to find the code on their site.

Once more, the developer's responsibility is to provide Apple with the code, not the end user. Who did the FSF approach? Oh, Apple.

"Apple is free to distribute our software through the App Store if they wish, but they cannot take advantage of the [GPL's] permissions while turning a blind eye to the conditions,"

Apple, not the dev, are at fault.

Invid - I have a lengthy written legal opinion here expounding on DMCA safe harbour and pre-screening, so...I'm going with that.

And well, another novel legal theory! So if I sell a company some code, and someone purchases the code from the company, I now have a contract with the purchaser? Like heck I do. Apple assign the support responsibilities of the apps they sell to the original developers under the Apple-developer contract. That's the only reason it's that way.

Your attack on the basis of copyleft software is amusing, but simply not backed up by legal precedent.

So if I sell a company some code, and someone purchases the code from the company, I now have a contract with the purchaser? Like heck I do. Apple assign the support responsibilities of the apps they sell to the original developers under the Apple-developer contract. That's the only reason it's that way.

The developers of apps for the App Store retain their copyrights. They don't sell anything to Apple, Apple retains no rights and in fact the developer agreement goes to some length in disclaiming Apple of liability for your software in their store.

So in the end, you as a developer are selling to me, the purchaser. I'm quite sure you can beat up the strawman you've just contructed, but I'm not sure what the point would be.

Then the developer WOULD be in breach. But it's trivial to provide a code link. Please don't pretend this is any sort of real barrier.

But the developer didn't. Go try to find the code on their site.

Once more, the developer's responsibility is to provide Apple with the code, not the end user. Who did the FSF approach? Oh, Apple.

No, it is not. Apple had no rights under the GPL because Apple never agreed to the GPL for any apps submitted to the store. When you submit an app to the store you cannot specify special terms to Apple, such as the GPL. The developers obligation to Apple is that they have all the necessary rights to distribute it via the app store under the terms of their agreement with Apple. Apple has neither the rights nor responsibilities granted by the GPL since they are not a party to the license, which makes this a standard copyright issue.

In other words:

Entity A creates software M distributed under license XEntity B creates software N (derived from M) and is obligated to distribute under license XEntity B distributes software N to Entity C under license Y without informing of them of their obligations under license X

Clearly Entity C is not a party to license X with either Entity A or Entity B (it is a party to license Y with Entity B). When Entity A informs Entity C of the violation they are informing them of a copyright violation, not a license violation. One of the mechanisms available to resolve the copyright violation is to become a party to license X, another one is to stop distribution if they are covered by copyright safe harbor.

Now just replace Entity A with FSF, Entity B with Robota Softwarehouse, Entity C with Apple, software M with GNU Go, Software N with GNU Go iPhone app, license X with GPLv2, and license Y with Apple developer agreement, and you have that exact situation.

The developers of apps for the App Store retain their copyrights. They don't sell anything to Apple, Apple retains no rights and in fact the developer agreement goes to some length in disclaiming Apple of liability for your software in their store.

And (not very, although you're wrong, but even if you WERE right) amazingly that dosn't mean Apple, as the FSF clearly stated, were not distributing the software. You're caught up with "ownership" being the be-all and end-all, and simply isn't when you're dealing with copyleft.

lgerbarg - Apple were aware of the licence. There is no way they could be unaware of it. Further, the developers fulfilled their obligations to Apple under the developer agreement. That's the extent of their liability. But even Apple knowing about the licence, as they did, changes the situation, so you're simply harping on about a situation which dosn't exist!

lgerbarg - Apple were aware of the licence. There is no way they could be unaware of it. Further, the developers fulfilled their obligations to Apple under the developer agreement. That's the extent of their liability. But even Apple knowing about the licence, as they did, changes the situation, so you're simply harping on about a situation which dosn't exist!

It doesn't matter if Apple was aware of the existence of GNU Go available under the GPL. The developer may have had an alternate license from the copyright holder (at this point it is clear they did not), but just because Apple could search online and find a copy of some related code distributed under the GPL does not mean the version the developer sent to Apple was distributed under the terms of the GPL. It is quite common for someone to release code under GPL and make proprietary licenses available under other terms. Further, if Apple actually did those sorts of searches it would probably blow any claims of safe harbor, so they don't, they just ask the developer if they have the appropriate rights to distribute the app, and then handle take down notices the same way youtube does. This is also how they handle issues with apps that include copyrighted images.

The developer asserted to Apple they had the right to distribute the app under a certain set of terms. They didn't. They copyright holder noticed and informed Apple, and Apple took down the infringing app. It really is as simple as that.

You disclose licences when you upload, before the approval process. Using certain licences WILL get you rejected, but the GPL has not (formerly, at least) done so.

And yes, it's darn simple. Apple were distributing code in violation of the GPL, and they chose to end their violation by taking down the violating code. That's IT. There is absolutely no liability on the part of the dev, or the faintest suggestion they did anything legally wrong.

You're disclose licences when you upload, before the approval process.

No, you don't. You disclose the EULA, not any custom terms between you and Apple.

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And the App maker DID have the right. This is really quite plain. Apple's issues with THEIR distribution do not in any way impact on the right of the devs to send it to Apple in the first place, under the dev agreement which allows the GPL!

No, the App maker had the right to distribute the app under the GPL. If we buy into your argument that Apple is acting as a distributer then the App maker did not have rights to grant Apple the ability to distribute it under the terms of the app store.

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"if Apple actually did those sorts of searches it would probably blow any claims of safe harbor"

They can't claim that anyway, because of the approvals process.

They absolutely can, because their approval process doesn't involve copyright clearances at all. They won't reject an app for potential copyright violations except under very specific and limited circumstances (closing an account for repeat violations, pending notice from a copyright holder, etc).

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And yes, it's darn simple. Apple were distributing code in violation of the GPL, and they chose to end their violation by taking down the violating code. That's IT.

No, they were distributing a binary that turned out to have FSF copyrighted code that the developer did not have appropriate rights to grant to Apple under the terms they granted it to Apple.

The GPL is a copyright grant. Just because I hand you a GPL'ed work does not mean you agree to the GPL. If you don't agree to the GPL then you have no right to copy it, and copying it is a simple copyright violation and covered by all the appropriate safe harbors. In order to be a GPL violation one has to actually agree to the GPL, and there is no way in the submission process for a developer to get Apple to agree to anything, only to tell Apple that what the developer has done comports with their obligations to Apple, and pass additional terms onto the end user.

if you fill out the application properly--which means specifying that you use the GPL--then Apple doesn't apply its own standard app store EULA, nor do its terms of usage impose any extra conditions. Thus, no prohibition on subsequent distribution, no prohibition on commercial usage, etc. etc.. [empahsis mine]

This is the whole crux of the question.

Not really. The license is explicitly clear, as the article points out.

Because these Usage Rules are for anything bought through the iTunes Store and not merely for Apple's own EULA, they aren't automatically irrelevant.

They are automatically irrelevant, since they explicitly state that they do not and cannot supersede the obligations of any open source licenses that are being used.

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All this crap about whether a developer submitted it with the right license or not is a red herring here. At least according to the article and the FSF, who filed the lawsuit in the first place.

Except it isn't, because Apple is a mere reseller who does nothing to restrict the obligations the GPL places on the developer, nor the entitlements the GPL grants the user.

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Beyond that, it's a question of interpreting these Usage Rules. Does "(xiii) Usage rules for software Products are governed by the terms of any end-user agreements or other terms and conditions required for use of such Products." override all the other terms (e.g. "(ii) You shall be authorized to use the Products only for personal, noncommercial use."), or does it merely allow the license to impose additional terms?

It overrides, plainly, or else it would be thoroughly pointless.

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This doesn't seem crystal clear to me from the text of the Usage Rules. Thus the FSF thinks that Apple either needs to clarify this, or a court of law needs to decide it. But I guess that's a lot harder to rail against than "The FSF is making Apple the scapegoat!!!11!eleventy!11!"

It is crystal clear, and there's no way that an agreement between end-user and developer can create obligations on a third party (Apple). The FSF should be going after the original developers.

In Dawn's apparent haste to convict Apple as an enemy of "software freedom", she seems to be assuming a lot. There's precious little case law for "bare licenses", i.e. licenses without associated contracts (such as the GPL), and as far as I'm aware (and I'd be interested in a correction if anyone knows different) there is none whatsoever regarding how a bare license might operate with regard to a middleman third party, such as Apple in this case, or Walmart in the case of the recent SFLC busybox "enforcement action".

It's doubtful that the GPL, sans contract, could even be enforced against Apple: Apple never agreed to anything, as far as the FSF is concerned. But all of that would be for a judge to decide and since there's no real precedent to guide us, it's up for grabs what the outcome would be. One can assume, however, that a decision that would have the effect of making third parties—who simply conducted their normal business in good faith—obligated to the terms of random licenses by which they'd never agreed to be bound is pretty unlikely.

Keep in mind that in a dispute such as this, a license (or a contract, or other legal document) does not say what either party wishes it did, or meant it to. It says what it says, and more specifically, it says what the judge says it does, in accordance with existing law and legal precedent. As has been pointed out, it's doubtful that Apple would be found to have "distributed" the software under the terms of the GPL (since that has a specific legal sense, somewhat different than the FSF would like: a license can't redefine terms—like "derivative work", for example—in opposition to existing law).

Dawn seems to have cut out that whole aspect of the legal process here, appointing herself (evidently on the FSF's behalf) as the sole adjudicator in this case, as well as plaintiff's counsel, and her assessment of the situation seems accordingly biased toward one party to the dispute.

Yes, this is seems like nothing but a publicity stunt on the FSF's part. Too bad it will have the likely effect of Apple banning anything which is GPL- or otherwise "copyleft"-licensed from the App Store from now on. That seems like a rather Pyrrhic victory for the Free Software Movement.

You disclose licences when you upload, before the approval process. Using certain licences WILL get you rejected, but the GPL has not (formerly, at least) done so.

And yes, it's darn simple. Apple were distributing code in violation of the GPL, and they chose to end their violation by taking down the violating code. That's IT. There is absolutely no liability on the part of the dev, or the faintest suggestion they did anything legally wrong.

So back to my original point.Best Buy sells OS X in a box. It has CUPS, a GPLed printing library (later Apple purchased and relicensed CUPS but that is irrelevant).

As soon as they are respectively notified that there is a copyright violation they are liable for, they take down the product (but since Apple provides the source for CUPS on their site and TiVo and Cisco provide the source for their products on their respective sites, all GPL obligations are met.

The developer who submitted GNU Go, however, has not provided source nor given access to source. It's easy to embed a link in the application to open a web browser, send an email, etc. The developer didn't, and is therefore in violation of the GPL.

Since Apple was notified by the copyright holder (FSF) of such, they took down the app.

Okay, I think I've finally managed to come up with a workable analogy here.

I operate a consignment car sales lot. It works as follows: to drive a car in and park it for the day, you pay twenty dollars and sign an agreement stating that the car is yours to sell, if you decide to. To drive a car out, you pay ten dollars and sign an agreement stipulating that you own the car. Walking in, or walking out is free.

Someone drives up in a Volkswagen Beetle. They pay their twenty dollars and sign the paper. You buy the car from them, and drive it out, paying your ten dollars and signing your paper.

Several days later, someone from the "Free Big Red Cooler Foundation" shows up and informs me that the previous owner of that Beetle was a member of the Foundation and the car is subject to the "General Big Red Cooler License", a copy of which is in the glove compartment. The License states that, whenever any car covered by the license is sold, a big red cooler _must_ be included as part of the sale, and that the prior owner had failed to uphold his obligations since no such cooler was included when he drove the car into my lot. They further inform me that, since the car was sold on my lot, I am now obliged to adhere to their license and must provide a big red cooler to you at my own expense.

I tell them to piss off. They take me to court and ask the judge to hold me liable under their license, as agreed to by the previous owner of the car.

Beyond that, it's a question of interpreting these Usage Rules. Does "(xiii) Usage rules for software Products are governed by the terms of any end-user agreements or other terms and conditions required for use of such Products." override all the other terms (e.g. "(ii) You shall be authorized to use the Products only for personal, noncommercial use."), or does it merely allow the license to impose additional terms?

It overrides, plainly, or else it would be thoroughly pointless.

Oh? It doesn't say "These Usage Rules shall be null and void where superseded by the terms of any end-user agreements, etc." What exactly does "governed by" mean in this case -- and by that, I mean "what does the relevant case law say 'governed by' means"? Unless you can cite the case law to me to back your point, don't tell me that the meaning is "obvious." Because this is what the FSF guy said the lawsuit is about, so apparently their lawyers don't agree with you.

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This doesn't seem crystal clear to me from the text of the Usage Rules. Thus the FSF thinks that Apple either needs to clarify this, or a court of law needs to decide it. But I guess that's a lot harder to rail against than "The FSF is making Apple the scapegoat!!!11!eleventy!11!"

It is crystal clear, and there's no way that an agreement between end-user and developer can create obligations on a third party (Apple). The FSF should be going after the original developers.

So then: suppose Bob's PCs buys a Mac and a copy of OS X from Best Buy. Bob's PCs strips down the computer for parts without ever turning it on, and resells the copy of OS X to an end user by placing it on another computer (by using a process that never runs the software or requires Bob's PCs to agree to Apple's terms directly). Since Bob's PCs never ran the software themselves and thus is not party to any agreement between the developer and an end user, clearly they have no particular legal obligations regarding the matter, right? Wrong, because that's not what the courts have held in similar cases.

Restrictions on licensure can apply to resellers, whether that license is a commercial license or the GPL. If you take money from someone in exchange for a product, you have to have to have the legal right to sell it. Applying additional terms is a license violation of the GPL in precisely the same way that reselling OS X on another computer is a violation of the OS X license. So if Apple has indeed applied additional terms (as discussed above), they could indeed be in violation of their obligations.

In Dawn's apparent haste to convict Apple as an enemy of "software freedom", she seems to be assuming a lot. There's precious little case law for "bare licenses", i.e. licenses without associated contracts (such as the GPL), and as far as I'm aware (and I'd be interested in a correction if anyone knows different) there is none whatsoever regarding how a bare license might operate with regard to a middleman third party, such as Apple in this case, or Walmart in the case of the recent SFLC busybox "enforcement action".

It's doubtful that the GPL, sans contract, could even be enforced against Apple: Apple never agreed to anything, as far as the FSF is concerned. But all of that would be for a judge to decide and since there's no real precedent to guide us, it's up for grabs what the outcome would be. One can assume, however, that a decision that would have the effect of making third parties—who simply conducted their normal business in good faith—obligated to the terms of random licenses by which they'd never agreed to be bound is pretty unlikely.

Keep in mind that in a dispute such as this, a license (or a contract, or other legal document) does not say what either party wishes it did, or meant it to. It says what it says, and more specifically, it says what the judge says it does, in accordance with existing law and legal precedent. As has been pointed out, it's doubtful that Apple would be found to have "distributed" the software under the terms of the GPL (since that has a specific legal sense, somewhat different than the FSF would like: a license can't redefine terms—like "derivative work", for example—in opposition to existing law).

Dawn seems to have cut out that whole aspect of the legal process here, appointing herself (evidently on the FSF's behalf) as the sole adjudicator in this case, as well as plaintiff's counsel, and her assessment of the situation seems accordingly biased toward one party to the dispute.

Yes, this is seems like nothing but a publicity stunt on the FSF's part. Too bad it will have the likely effect of Apple banning anything which is GPL- or otherwise "copyleft"-licensed from the App Store from now on. That seems like a rather Pyrrhic victory for the Free Software Movement.

An interesting and well-reasoned perspective. Thanks for helping me understand the legal issues at hand better.

Arrrghhhh. Get a life. Apple likely got called on something they didn't recognize, and/or in a way they didn't anticipate, and needs some time to fix it (and they likely said pull it rather than ask their legal department to spend this nice long weekend being sure GNU Go could be downloaded). They could leave it up and keep being harassed by the FUDders crowd for leaving it there, or they can pull it and be harassed by the FUDders for taking it down, but at least if they pull it no one can accuse them of ignoring the issue. Sorry, but I'm sure it took FSF more than a day to generate the report (and what do they have to lose?) and it will take more than a day for Apple to evaluate and to decide on a change in terms of their license. Perhaps if FSF hadn't released a public criticism and ArsT (and others) didn't fan the flames, allowing Apple and FSF a chance to find a solution, so much time, bits, and stress wouldn't be released on the universe over something so small, so small that it can be fixed with just a bit of time and a whole lot less whining.

Besides, do you really think Apple intends by their license to impose anything contrary to a GPL license, or do you think it just might be difficult to write rules that cover every nuance? As the courts require, if no harm is done, there is nothing to fix. Good for FSF to point it out, but shame on us all for stirring up a storm in a tea cup. Now what was it I was going to do this weekend?

"We would've liked to see Apple do the right thing and remove these limits, but it looks like that's not going to happen. Apple has removed GNU Go from the App Store, continuing their longstanding habit of preventing users from doing anything that Apple doesn't want them to do. As we said in our initial announcement, this is disappointing but unsurprising; Apple made this choice a long time ago. We just need to make sure everybody else gets the message: if you value your independence and creativity, you should be aware that Apple doesn't. Take your computing elsewhere."

I was wrong. FSF is just whining because almost nobody wants to do what they want them to do, that is give away practically everything for free, and without any restrictions, thinking everyone is so much a geek that they would know what to do with Quarry, CGoban 1, Jago, gGo or a .tar.gz package.

Look FSF, Apple is in the business of selling computers to normal people, computers that are reliable and easy to use without having to hire a FSF geek to maintain it. If you want to play with Linux, go for it, but I think it is pretty clear that the general public is choosing something else, all this despite the repeated claims by their competitors others who are envious of Apple's successful model, making claims of Apple being the new big brother.

Apple has given us a choice and we have chosen it. They have given musicians a better chance to be heard and listeners a better price (and even helped to stem the free flowing theft). You can play in any yard you want; there is no fence in the Apple yard, just terms of agreement, just as there are to play in the FSF GPL yard. We can all play in each other's yard, and we can all have our terms of agreement, but we don't need to be criticizing someone else's yard in the name of "Freedom" because it is bigger if we have chosen to make our's small.

@wanorris, you're welcome. I do this—i.e. assisting companies with understanding open source licensing and complying with it—professionally, as it happens. (Don't try this at home without a thorough grounding in copyright law, contract law, patent law, etc.)

Since I brought up the subject of precedent, I wanted to comment on the precedent that the FSF has now set. According to Brett Smith's postings on the FSF site, the issue is that, by setting additional "Terms of Usage", Apple has added restrictions to the GPL.

3.8 You agree that Google and/or third parties own all right, title and interest in and to the Market and the Products available through the Market, including without limitation all applicable Intellectual Property Rights in the Products. "Intellectual Property Rights" means any and all rights existing under patent law, copyright law, trade secret law, trademark law, unfair competition law, and any and all other proprietary rights worldwide. You agree that you will not, and will not allow any third party to, (i) copy, sell, license, distribute, transfer, modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Products, unless otherwise permitted, (ii) take any action to circumvent or defeat the security or content usage rules provided, deployed or enforced by any functionality (including without limitation digital rights management or forward-lock functionality) in the Products, (iii) use the Products to access, copy, transfer, transcode or retransmit content in violation of any law or third party rights, or (iv) remove, obscure, or alter Google's or any third party's copyright notices, trademarks, or other proprietary rights notices affixed to or contained within the Products.

It seems likely that the restrictions expressed and implied in this paragraph along make obtaining GPL-licensed software through this channel untenable. If that weren't enough, among Google's policies is

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From time to time, Google may discover a Product on the Market that violates the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or other legal agreements, laws, regulations or policies. In such an instance, Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your Device at its sole discretion.

So much for running the product where and when the user wants: that's the "Freedom Zero" gone right out the window. Clearly, the Android Market cannot be used as a middleman provider of GPL-licensed software, either. The fact that developers aren't making a dime off applications like GNUgo is immaterial; the FSF would apparently want to deprive them of all formal channels for propagating their work, and in the name of "freedom".

Like I said, it seems a pretty Pyrrhic victory for me. (And there are much better Go programs for the iPhone.)

Dawn Falcon writes, "No, the assuming is yours. I am not "convicting" Apple of anything. My point, if you'd read my posts, is that the dev has done nothing wrong."

Well, your point, such as it is, is completely incorrect then: the developer distributed a program while providing no source, nor any link to any source, nothing more than an (undated) note claiming that source "might be available next week".

That's a clear violation, Dawn. I'd be fascinated to see your explanation of how it isn't. And if you could possibly do it without descending into grade-school insults, that'd be pleasant, too.

See, Dawn, this is what I'm talking about. In spite of the fact that you weren't there, and you haven't seen the developers' submission, you somehow know that "Apple were [sic] aware of the licence [sic]". Unless you have some sort of clairvoyant powers, it's difficult to understand how you can make a statement like this with such certainty and assurance. And you've been making statements like this, presenting speculation as fact, throughout.

By the way, it seems to me that the FSF enforcement action is going to have a broader impact. The problems cited by the FSF with regard to the GPL and the iTunes App Store also exist with the "Windows Marketplace for Mobile" and the "Android Market". I've posted an article with the details on "Freeish Software [dot] Org" at

Indeed, a developer puts a license in the description. Did Robota put the correct license in the description? Are you absolutely sure of that? How?

"Don't be more of a fool than you're making yourself out to be."

Well, someone's making themselves look foolish here, but I suspect it's more up for grabs just which of the two it is than you might like to imagine.

"And yes, I get it, you HATE the free software movement and anyone who dares use those licences."

See? There you go with that clairvoyance again.

Just so that you can be a little better-informed, you should know that I've been actively involved in the release of software, at one time or another, under the GPL, LGPL, BSDL and MPL, and I was centrally involved in Apple's first-ever release of original code ever under an open source license: I was the manager of the group which, among other things, implemented Rendezvous (now Bonjour) while I was there, and that work was done under my direction. I've spoken at GUADEC, the Ottawa Linux Symposium, LinuxWorld, the Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit, FOSTEL and a variety of other community conferences. I'm also a Fellow of the Free Software Foundation-Europe and a member of the GNOME Foundation.

So, I don't "HATE" the "free software movement", and that's a very silly accusation for you to make. I'd describe myself as an "open source software developer", largely because I absolutely don't subscribe to the political agenda advocated by the (American) FSF.

I'm not a big fan of unproductive, self-serving and self-defeating behavior, which is what the FSF seems increasingly to be indulging in. And I'm not a big fan of uninformed and ignorant rants, which is what you seem increasingly to be indulging in.

OMG... I have heard a lot of nonsense from anti-GPL trolls over the years, but only deluded Apple fanbois can be this out of touch of reality.

It basically reads like this:

This infidel who have given GNU Go to Apple [which, GPL perfectly allows; you can distribute GPL'd code even to jerks and Steve Jobs followers] should have known better than to expect Apple to comply with GPL! If FSF wants GPL to be obeyed, it should sue anyone who submits GPL'd code to Apple Store. Apple is not doing anything wrong, it is just being idiot like always. FSF is evil for expecting Apple not to be an idiot! Hail Apple! Down with Freedom! -----

Of curse, if FSF would take the advice and recommend people not to submit GPL code to App Store, then Apple zealots would say that FSF is evil and hates Apple... brainless Steve Jobs followers have no reasoning beyond blindly defending Church of Apple.